Celebrate International Women’s Day on the Big Screen

International Women’s Day (IWD) is on Sunday, March 8. This observance traces back to the early 1900s. In 1908, 15,000 women marched through NYC demanding shorter hours, better pay, and the right to vote. These initial actions led to the first observance of IWD in 1909. Today, IWD involves thousands of events throughout the world inspiring women and celebrating their achievements.

Cinema Politica is proud to boast a variety of documentaries about feminism, women, and gender politics. Here are just a few:

Undoubtedly, the feminist movement continuously faces opposition of all kinds. I WAS A TEENAGE FEMINIST explores when and how feminism became an F-word. Filmmaker Therese Shechter takes us into the heart of Feminism through a humourous and deeply personal documentary that redefines the F-word for the 21st century.

Today, the feminist movement continues to grow into a powerful force, and along the way different types of feminisms have emerged. Rozenn Potin’s CAUTION FEMINISTS! profiles five contemporary feminists in Montréal. Each one represents a nuanced expression of feminism, and the film poses a variety of questions relevant to women today.

Feminists have also gotten creative and edgy. In the provocative doc VESSEL, Rebecca Gomperts challenges anti-abortion laws around the world with an ingenious method: by providing reproductive rights at sea, in international waters.

By experimenting with a variety of art forms, women have and continue to express themselves without apology. In THE HERETICS, we discover the inside story of the 1970s NYC feminist art collective that produced Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics, a feminist art magazine featuring artists’ work, essays, prose, and poetry. Jumping forward to the present day, in GIRLS ROCK, a group of young girls are taken to Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp, where they are taught it’s okay to sweat like a pig, scream like a banshee, and wail on their instruments with utter abandon. And in BREAKING THE FRAME – a kinetic meditation on the relation of art to the physical, domestic, and conceptual aspects of daily life – painter, filmmaker, poet and performance artist Carolee Schneemann confronts assumptions of feminism, gender, sexuality, and identity.

Turning to Mexico, EUFROSINA’S REVOLUTION follows Eufrosina Cruz Mendoza, an indigenous political career woman defying patriarchy and state power in Oaxaca. Despite being harassed by the local government every step of the way, she unwaveringly attacks gender inequality and the lack of women’s voting rights in her community and many others.

At CP we also work hard toward gender equity and as such we invite you to explore more women filmmakers in our artists section and the many, many great films directed by women in our films section.

We encourage you to either attend a film screening or organize a screening to celebrate IWD in your community. Let’s all fight for a better future for women across the globe – screenings are but one part of a larger movement.

Cinema Politica is the largest campus and community based documentary screening network in the world. We are a Montreal-based non-profit media arts organization dedicated to the dissemination of independent political works by Canadian and international filmmakers.